Advances in information technology continue to demand increasingly larger storage capabilities and consequently, improvements in the way a user can query and navigate through such large amounts of data. Computers and portable computing devices are ubiquitous with each class of devices having its own data access and management considerations. In support thereof, data storage techniques and access methodologies continue to evolve to meet these demands. However, such evolving systems can take significant departures from conventional data access, navigation, and storage regimes. Thus, users who might have been relatively familiar with the traditional systems now must become savvy to the newer methodologies.
Currently, typical applications have a few menu commands that facilitate the modification of document metadata (e.g., in a Microsoft OFFICE brand suite of applications running on a WINDOWS XP brand operating system). A Save command is used to update the current version of the document on the hard drive. For a new document being saved for the very first time, Save invokes a SaveAs dialog. Otherwise, the update is performed transparently with no dialog. The SaveAs command creates a new version of the document file on the hard drive, and starts by bringing up a dialog window to set the properties needed to uniquely identify the file.
In the Windows XP brand operating system, the identifying properties can include, for example, a file name, a file type (file name extension), and a location of the file in the folder tree (collectively, these properties are called a file path). The SaveAs dialog includes a folder tree browser similar to an Open dialog and a WINDOWS EXPLORER brand browser viewer. This reinforces the feeling of a folder as a place—if the file is placed there, it can be found there later. Additionally, the browser shows the other files in each folder location. This facilitates an informed decision if a given folder is the right place to save the new document. It also supports one-click copying of the file identifying properties—when an existing file is clicked, the new file name is set to the same value and the newly-saved document assumes the identity and replace the existing one.
A Properties option brings up a dialog to set the document metadata, such as Author, Title, Subject, Category, Keywords, Comments, etc. In a Windows XP brand operating system, document metadata are auxiliary—they can be visible in the browser view, but they cannot actually be used to browse the disk content across multiple folders.
A Versions option allows the creation of multiple versions of the document. In a Windows XP brand operating system, versioning is not supported at the system level; therefore, the implementation is application dependent. Many applications choose to keep all the versions in a single file. Other applications allow setting the version property, but different versions must have different file identity and are not linked together. Thus, user interaction with properties is cumbersome and unfriendly.
What is needed is an improved metadata management system.